Put Immersion BACK Into The Game

So, after some recent discussion, it would seem convenience is destroying immersion. So, I would suggest putting immersion back in the game. Just so we are clear, this is my personal opinion. I speak for no one other than myself, and do NOT believe this will ever be seen by Blizz since this is not their official forum. With that in mind, here are some conveniences which need to be removed in order to improve immersion and bring back the RPG feel to the game:

1. Hunters will now be asked to give up a bag slot in exchange for a quiver or ammo pouch.
2. Ammunition will make its return.
3. Ranged weapons will once again need to be ranged. a 10 yard dead zone will be re-implemented.
4. Weapon and unarmed skills will need to be raised separately once more.
5. Hunter and Battle Pets will need to be fed to keep them happy and to prevent them from running away.
6. Attunements and Keys will be added back into Heroics. If you do not have a key, or a party member with one, you are out of luck.
7. Simple Wood and Flint & Tinder are once again needed to make fire.
8. Spell reagents will be re-implemented
9. Flight will be removed from Azeroth but remain in the newer territories to provide more old world immersion
10. Samantha Swifthoof will be returned to the path in Stranglethorn Vale
11. Certain quest mobs will be given their elite status back and will require a group to kill them.
12. Low level dungeons will get patrols once more who will respawn and can come up behind players without warning
13. Guild perks will be removed
14. Mining, Skinning, and Herbing all have a chance to fail when trying and will once again only give 1 item at a time up to a total of 3.
15. All extra Auction Houses, Mailboxes, and Banks will be removed from Stormwind and Orgrimmar bringing them back to 1 each.
16. Warlocks will now farm shards once more to provide a power base for certain spells.
17. Paladins, Warlocks, Druids, and Shaman no longer get special animals and mounts automatically. There is once again a quest chain to accomplish these means.
18. Druids will be reduced to 3 specs which will once again combine Guardian and Feral into the original Cat/Bear combo.
19. Each class Pet will again require a quest to complete in order to learn how to summon their pet.
20. Training is no longer automatic. You must once again visit your class trainer.
21. Pet trainers will be included in the afore mentioned.
22. Dual specs will be removed as you can only really play one spec at a time.
23. Original talent trees will be implemented and everyone will once again be able to tweak their class
24. Rogues will again be making poisons and applying them as they learn them.
25. Paladins will be removed from the Horde as Shaman will be removed from the Alliance. Too much class/faction homogenization.

Please feel free to add to this list. I'm sure there are plenty of immersive type items I am missing.

*Also, don't take this list too seriously. It was all in good fun. Mostly a farce to show how much things have improved.

So, after some recent discussion, it would seem convenience is destroying immersion. So, I would suggest putting immersion back in the game. Just so we are clear, this is my personal opinion. I speak for no one other than myself, and do NOT believe this will ever be seen by Blizz since this is not their official forum. With that in mind, here are some conveniences which need to be removed in order to improve immersion and bring back the RPG feel to the game:

1. Hunters will now be asked to give up a bag slot in exchange for a quiver or ammo pouch.
2. Ammunition will make its return.
5. Hunter and Battle Pets will need to be fed to keep them happy and to prevent them from running away.
8. Spell reagents will be re-implemented
10. Samantha Swifthoof will be returned to the path in Stranglethorn Vale
11. Certain quest mobs will be given their elite status back and will require a group to kill them.
12. Low level dungeons will get patrols once more who will respawn and can come up behind players without warning
17. Paladins, Warlocks, Druids, and Shaman no longer get special animals and mounts automatically. There is once again a quest chain to accomplish these means.
18. Druids will be reduced to 3 specs which will once again combine Guardian and Feral into the original Cat/Bear combo.
19. Each class Pet will again require a quest to complete in order to learn how to summon their pet.
20. Training is no longer automatic. You must once again visit your class trainer.
21. Pet trainers will be included in the a-fore mentioned.
24. Rogues will again be making poisons and applying them as they learn them.

Please feel free to add to this list. I'm sure there are plenty of immersive type items I am missing.

*Also, don't take this list too seriously. It was all in good fun. Mostly a farce to show how much things have improved.

3. Ranged weapons will once again need to be ranged. a 10 yard dead zone will be re-implemented.

That would do the opposite. Can you not pull the trigger if you put your gun to someone's head? And haven't you been watching Legolas shooting orcs with his bow at point blank range? If immersion is the goal they should change it so hit chance decreases the further away from the target you are.

"Immersion" is one of those buzz words that everyone is tossing around right now, and most people never really make the effort to really reflect on what the word actually means.

WoW is way more immersive than it has ever been, and the whole idea that "convenience destroys immersion" is a fallacious assumption in itself. "Loss of immersion" obviously largely gets confused with "quality of life". Further, people seem to assume that there can be no such thing as too much immersion in a game, which is also fallacious in itself. The whole point of video games is that it's a reactive, and increasingly interactive medium that builds on the principles of game and problem-solving behavior. The more you get truly immersed, the more the experience takes you away from the mindset of functionally and constructively interacting with the game's systems and interfaces. Gaming will never be the leading immersive medium, books and films will be ahead no matter what and it lies in the nature of the medium. There's also nothing wrong about it.

9. Flight will be removed from Azeroth but remain in the newer territories to provide more old world immersion
18. Druids will be reduced to 3 specs which will once again combine Guardian and Feral into the original Cat/Bear combo.

I like them all except for these 2. I see flight more as all or nothing. It doesn't make sense to me to ban flight in one place and not the others. And I see no improvement in immersion by recombining guardian with feral. Everything else sounds great tho.

So, after some recent discussion, it would seem convenience is destroying immersion. So, I would suggest putting immersion back in the game. Just so we are clear, this is my personal opinion. I speak for no one other than myself, and do NOT believe this will ever be seen by Blizz since this is not their official forum. With that in mind, here are some conveniences which need to be removed in order to improve immersion and bring back the RPG feel to the game:

6. Attunements and Keys will be added back into Heroics. If you do not have a key, or a party member with one, you are out of luck. (account-wide)
8. Spell reagents will be re-implemented (allow the spell to work without them but provide a stronger effect if using a reagent)
11. Certain quest mobs will be given their elite status back and will require a group to kill them.
12. Low level dungeons will get patrols once more who will respawn and can come up behind players without warning
17. Paladins, Warlocks, Druids, and Shaman no longer get special animals and mounts automatically. There is once again a quest chain to accomplish these means.
19. Each class Pet will again require a quest to complete in order to learn how to summon their pet.

Please feel free to add to this list. I'm sure there are plenty of immersive type items I am missing.

*Also, don't take this list too seriously. It was all in good fun. Mostly a farce to show how much things have improved.

Nice reminder to what's changed since vanilla. Left the things I would like back.

At this point, I don't think you can bring back immersion. It's actually rather difficult to stay immersed in a game after close to 10 years simply because as time goes on, the percentage of the playerbase at max level increases. When a player is at max level (in any MMO), immersion slowly disappears over time, especially as more and more players reach the same point. After a long enough time line (infinite) everyone has the strongest gear and infinite money and completed all the quests and leveled all the professions etc... It is then impossible to do anything more than just wait. WoW has reached this point.

The list you made just has quality of life changes (ie making life suck.) QoL doesn't add or remove immersion as you think it does. It adds unwanted and unneeded hardships that don't bring enjoyment. Plus, hunters getting ammo for instance was a "Let me spend 30 seconds before a raid and buy all my ammo" then when they run out they waste the entire raids time while they gather more or they do 0 dps. Same thing with warlocks shards. Plus, shards have now become integrated into the rotation. (And only affliction uses soul shards now.)

The only way to immerse players again is to reset and remove all the +exp bonuses and exp nerfs added to the game as a QoL change for alts forcing everyone to relevel and start from 0 again.

So, after some recent discussion, it would seem convenience is destroying immersion. So, I would suggest putting immersion back in the game. Just so we are clear, this is my personal opinion. I speak for no one other than myself, and do NOT believe this will ever be seen by Blizz since this is not their official forum. With that in mind, here are some conveniences which need to be removed in order to improve immersion and bring back the RPG feel to the game:

6. Attunements and Keys will be added back into Heroics. If you do not have a key, or a party member with one, you are out of luck.
7. Simple Wood and Flint & Tinder are once again needed to make fire.
8. Spell reagents will be re-implemented
11. Certain quest mobs will be given their elite status back and will require a group to kill them.
16. Warlocks will now farm shards once more to provide a power base for certain spells.
17. Paladins, Warlocks, Druids, and Shaman no longer get special animals and mounts automatically. There is once again a quest chain to accomplish these means.
19. Each class Pet will again require a quest to complete in order to learn how to summon their pet.

These ones are ok in my mind, the ones I deleted are needless.

16. Warlocks will now farm shards once more to provide a power base for certain spells.

Raiding in BC I had to log on sometimes up to 2 hours early to fill my *three* soul bags with soulshards so I could summon people, not every warlock did it, but every warlock would take shit about how they can't summon if they didn't. Even worse though, lets assume that this isn't your goal and you want them to just be items again instead of a resource bar. Does this mean that you want warlocks to have to farm trash inbetween *every* *single* *wipe*? Is that what you call immersion when your raid wipes and one or more of your players must now hearth and go farm basic trash for shards so they can maximize their damage next attempt?

25. Paladins will be removed from the Horde as Shaman will be removed from the Alliance. Too much class/faction homogenization.

Faction balance is already a problem, there is literally no reason for this and it would be even worse than the above.

4. Weapon and unarmed skills will need to be raised separately once more.
6. Attunements and Keys will be added back into Heroics. If you do not have a key, or a party member with one, you are out of luck.
7. Simple Wood and Flint & Tinder are once again needed to make fire.
8. Spell reagents will be re-implemented
11. Certain quest mobs will be given their elite status back and will require a group to kill them.
12. Low level dungeons will get patrols once more who will respawn and can come up behind players without warning
17*. Paladins, Warlocks, Druids, and Shaman no longer get special animals and mounts automatically. There is once again a quest chain to accomplish these means.
19. Each class Pet will again require a quest to complete in order to learn how to summon their pet.
20. Training is no longer automatic. You must once again visit your class trainer.
21. Pet trainers will be included in the afore mentioned.
23. Original talent trees will be implemented and everyone will once again be able to tweak their class
24. Rogues will again be making poisons and applying them as they learn them.

I left out the Hunter/ammo ones because I've never really played a Hunter and am indifferent there. Same with the Druid one. I don't play a Druid, so I don't really care.

A big "no thanks" to removal of all the extra auction houses and mailboxes. I was happy when Blizzard implemented those. If anything, it gives you some room to explore cities instead of having one AH here and one mailbox there where EVERYONE is hanging out.

I put the * on #17 because I agree with it, but I think that should apply to all classes. I'd like to see EVERY class get a class-specific mount with a quest chain tied to it, similar to what Warlocks/Paladins got.

I would really love more reason to visit major cities other than Stormwind/Orgrimmar. If an NPC provides an important service, every city should have it. Same with portals to important places. I also think it'd be kind of cool if you had some incentive to visit "your" city based on race. For example, if you log out in Ironforge on a Dwarf, you get a one-hour buff of some sort when you log back in. Nothing huge or overpowered. Could even just be a cosmetic thing. I still think that'd be cool.

Would also love to see class-specific quests come back. Warrior Fray Island/Cyclonian quests, Warlock pet quests, quests to learn some new class ability or get a class-specific piece of gear, etc. Those were fun. I'd also like to see heirlooms go away in favor of bringing back said class-specific quests.